There were eight of us in the Intro to Adventuring class. The group was evenly split between men and women, and the age range ran from 15 to an old lady with a walker. And we were waiting outside a building that said "Earl's Escape Rooms."

Standing around in a group, everyone looked at each other awkwardly. I said, "Yo."

The big guy across from me replied, "Yo," and I nodded to him.

"So. Adventuring," I said. He nodded back.

"I expect I will eventually be eaten by a Grue, but I might as well try anyway. Name's Neil." The big guy said.

"Hey, Neil. Name's Randy. Killed any monsters yet?"

"Naw. Too hard to get into a dungeon. Bought a crystal, though. I can [Transform: Broccoli into Brussel Sprout]."

"That's an important skill," I said, nodding. "I can [Summon: Everything Bagel]." I handed a bagel to Neil.

"Thanks. I wonder why we are waiting in front of an escape room?" Neil said, then took a bite from his bagel.

"Mind giving me one too? I missed desayuno," The old woman with the walker spoke up, "My name is Maria, and I can [Summon: Ruby Throated Hummingbird]." She demonstrated by summoning a hummingbird which promptly flew away. "My grandson has regular access to the Dungeon en las Des Moines, and he said he found it and thought his abuela would like it. He is a good grandson."

"Cool spell," Neil said while I handed her an Everything Bagel. "I brought some Broccoli if anyone wants to watch me turn it into a brussel sprout." He held up his backpack.

"No thanks." Everyone, including the people who hadn't spoken yet, said.

"If you concentrate on something else while casting your spell, you can slowly learn a different spell. I have [Learn: Summon Jalapeño and Cheddar Bagel] at 1% because I think about how much my heart aches for a bagel with just the right amount of cheese and pepper when I summon an Everything Bagel. Maybe try turning your broccoli into Cauliflower or Bacon or hummingbird or something." I mentioned.

"What a lovely idea," Maria said, "I wonder… Maybe I can imagine my own bird."

"[Summon: Attack Hummingbird] would be a cool spell," I said because a swarm of killer hummingbirds would be awesome.

"Goodness, no! Why would I want such a thing? Humming Birds are muy bonita," said Maria. "Back in Guatemala, we had them in every rainbow color. I thought [Summon: Quetzal] would remind me of home."

"The crystal I got lets me [Speak Turkish]," said a woman who hadn't spoken yet.

We all nodded.

A car pulled up and parked in the open space next to the door. A man got out and opened the backdoor of the car, extracting some bags from Dunkin Donuts. He approached us and said, "Mind holding these while I get the door." The woman, who could now speak Turkish, took the bags. At the same time, the new man fiddled with his keys before eventually opening the door and holding it open so we could all go in.

The bags held donuts, muffins, and coffee, which the new guy laid out on a table. "Feel free to grab a muffin and a coffee if you haven't had breakfast.

"While we do that, let's get started. I'm Earl; I teach physics at the University of South St. Petersburg. I'm also a 12th-level Mage / Crafter hybrid subclass. My class specialty lets me make tools that measure physical and magical data in Dungeons. I have been delving since the University portal first appeared. I wouldn't say I know everything, but I can give noobs a good start based on what the faculty and students of the University have learned so far.

"But first. Raise your hand if you have been in a dungeon," Earl said. Some dood sitting behind Maria raised his hand.

"One person. Good. Even if you have some experience taking a class focused on the basics is a great idea. Okay, now, who has gotten their hands on a skill crystal. Go ahead, raise your hands."

I raised mine, as did Neil, Maria, the woman who spoke Turkish, the dood who said he'd been in a dungeon, and one other person. "Great. So two of you are virgins; that's less than we normally get. There is no shame in not having a crystal. We have a class section on the various known ways of accessing the [System] and checking to see you aren't getting ripped off."

"But first," Earl opened a cabinet and took out a stack of handouts. He counted out eight and put the rest away. "Take one and pass it along. As you can see, the first page is the average [Status] screen everyone gets when they first access the [System]. I want to stress that this is average. What you see first is tailored to the language you speak and to your personality. A well-known example of a non-standard [Status] is the, possibly apocryphal, guy whose initial page was written in Klingon."

"The next page is a copy of the [Status] by DominoRay. There have been some recent updates, so what you see on your [Status] isn't exactly what is on the photocopy. If you haven't installed it, I highly suggest you do. There are a lot of helpful apps and mods attached to it. The URL on the bottom of the photocopy is the website where you can buy the instructions for installing it.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"And no, DominoRay is not Satoshi Nakamoto, Hal Finney, Tim Brenner Lee, Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds, or any rando you can think of. Domino doesn't like people asking about it. The fastest way to get banned from his [Status] shell is to discuss who he is on there. Many people are suspicious of this and develop conspiracy theories about who DominoRay is. Many libertarians and anarchists refuse to use his [Status].

"But it is a tool -- a useful tool -- and more importantly, DominoRay's software is OpenSourced. A teammate in my adventuring party from the Computer Science Department of the University of South Florida went through the code line by line, and he couldn't find anything hoakie."

"Getting back on topic.

- The basic stats are [Strength], which generates [Stamina] or how much energy you have.

- [Endurance], which is your [Health] - how much the monsters can stomp on you before you croak.

- [Vitality] helps you recover both your [Stamina] and [Health]. Some hypothesize that it measures how long you will live if nothing bad happens. Still, not enough experiments have been done on this subject.

- [Agility] is how quickly you move around

- [Dexterity] is how deft your physical, mechanical manipulation is.

- [Social] is how well you interact with people

- [Will Power] is how much mana you get."

Earl reviewed the [Status] page line by line and compared every feature to the one DominoRay had made. The [Forum], [Market], [Auction], and [Groups] were covered in broad enough strokes that nothing Randy didn't already know was covered. Then Earl went into some imitation [Status] screens people had put out based on the DominoRay code.

Lastly, he brought up a couple of mods that might be interesting.

I liked the idea of the Bestiary someone was compiling that listed the strengths and weaknesses of various monsters. Though Earl warned us that the Bestiary mod downloaded monster data from the logs of people who'd installed it into their [Status] unless they toggled the opted-out button.

The Dungeon Wi-Fi connection and the Live Stream mods sounded useful. Still, both pieces of [Systemware] were based on a handful of passive skills with expensive Crystal prerequisites, and both were still incredibly buggy. Besides, I wasn't sure I was down with turning my brain into a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Next, Earl took us through some of the [Status] 's system settings, including how to make the window transparent, install background images, watch other Delver's live streams, record videos to broadcast, synch some [Status] functions to IFTTT, and had us write an easy macro to simplify looting.

Around noon a guy with a couple of pizza boxes showed up at the door. Earl said, "That's enough book learning for today. After lunch, I will split you into two groups of four, and we will do some applied exercises."

The pizza was cheesy and gooey, like pizza should be. And through the miracle of chit-chat, I learned about the other would-be adventurers.

From Amanda, I discovered that, unlike pizza, summoned bagels had no gluten or lactose.

The dood said his name was Charlie, and he had the [Fireball] spell. I was curious about this since, so far, the only spell close enough to [Fireball] that I'd encountered were the [Ignite] and the [Burn] spell. I looked the crystal for Fireball up in the [Market], and it cost 1,434 Experience and had a couple of prerequisites.

The last person with a spell and [System] was a woman in her early 20's. Total business casual on a weekend vibe. Her parents gave her a crystal with a passive spell that made her immune to most date rape drugs. Her name was Maggie. I couldn't imagine how much a useful spell would sell for on eBay or Craigslist. Her family must be loaded, or she must come from a family of active adventurers.

"No doubt, some of you wondered what a course on the Basics of Adventuring has to do with escape rooms," Earl said as we gobbled our za, "It turns out the answer is a lot. Here's a question for the group. In a dungeon, what is your most important skill?"

I raised my hand, "The ability to turn Broccoli into Brussels Sprouts," turning my head to Neil, I said, "Sorry dude, it was just too easy."

"Okay, after the ability to turn Broccoli into Brussels Sprouts, what is the second most important Skill?"

Maggie raised her hand. "Staying alive?"

"Close. Very close," said Earl, "Staying alive is indeed important, but how do we stay alive."

"We bash the fuck out of things," Charlie the dood yelled, "And if we can't bash them, we burn them. And if we can't burn them, we stab them."

"Killing monsters in a dungeon is important, but I wouldn't rank it as the most important," Earl said. "At the University, teams often go in with Graduate Assistants who train for combat while the faculty who accompany them stay out of fights and perform research."

"Is it having a [Status] and access to the [System]," Amanda said.

"Nope. While the [System] is important, some people block access to their [System] entirely and try to learn how to survive without it. Religious types, paranoids, some researchers, and many other types. The most famous example of this is the Shaolin temple in China."

"No, the most critical skill you need in a Dungeon is the ability to observe. The ability to find hidden dangers, secret treasure, and obscured passageways. You must be able to take in a situation quickly, plan out a strategy to deal with traps and monsters, and then implement your plans."

"Yes, I know. Most public dungeons have walk-throughs with all the dangers cataloged and their risks detailed. But this apocalypse has only been happening for just over a month. Being able to [Observe] could save your life if things suddenly change."

"At this establishment, we've set up two escape rooms to copy verified rooms in the University dungeon. Traps, hidden dangers, secret compartments, clues, and puzzles will exist. Your goal is to get out in an hour. If you take this seriously and you have the [System] you should be awarded the [Learn: Observe], [Learn: Find Secret] and [Learn: Find Trap] skills. If you don't have the [System] yet, this exercise is still good practice."

"In the photocopies, I have listed the name, address, and price of every escape room in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. Consider driving to some of them. According to our Graduate Assistants, doing between 15 to 25 of these rooms will transform the [Learn] into a usable skill."

"Now, why don't you make two groups of four, and we can start the applied portion of day 1."

I grouped up with Neil, Maria, and Amanda (the woman who could speak Turkish). Earl led us to the Second Escape room and let us in, making a visible show of locking the door behind us.